


Bloodletting

by Anonymous



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everything hurts and nothing is good, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ramsay’s version of aftercare, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Reek is punished for hanging around Lady Sansa's chambers.
Relationships: Ramsay Bolton/Reek, Ramsay Bolton/Theon Greyjoy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 71
Collections: Anonymous





	Bloodletting

**Author's Note:**

> For Qouii's INCREDIBLE art, visit [here](https://qouii.tumblr.com/post/615298949875679232/i-forgive-you)

Sansa refused to look at him anymore. 

The most Reek saw of her when he shuffled into her chambers with her meals was the curve of a bruised cheek turned away from him. She spent most of her time by the window and rarely bothered dressing herself beyond the bare minimum of clothing required to keep warm. Her bed was always mussed. 

Theon changed the bedding every time. He couldn’t bear to look at the spots of blood on the linens. 

His injured foot made it a laborious task, and sometimes when he bent to adjust the pillows, he went all lightheaded and had to pause until the feeling passed. She offered no comment. Her stony expression did not change at any small noises of pain he made.

When he was finished tidying, he took with him the remainders of her meals, which were always plentiful. 

_“She eats like a bird,”_ Theon remembered Robb saying, far away through a haze of regret and grief that stabbed like a knife. In the doorway, the urge to say something—anything—welled up in him like blood from a wound, but it never made it past the lump in his throat. What was there to say? What could he do? 

Nothing. Nothing at all. Reek was not a man anymore. A man would have listened to Sansa’s pleas and lit the candle in the window, and maybe run away with her and given her his cloak so she could stay warm. But Theon was not a man, and besides, he had no cloak, so escape in the grip of winter was particularly improbable. She was foolish for asking it of him. 

Reek told himself this, but it never eased the ache in his chest.

That night, Ramsay took his supper in his private chambers.

He was still dressed in his riding leathers. For the past seven days, he’d been out on a hunt—the mundane kind, thankfully. Reek had heard the horses come clamoring in through the gates and felt his heart stutter in his ribcage. The news spread quickly—Ramsay and his boys had come back empty-handed, which meant Ramsay would not be in a good mood. 

That was dangerous for Reek, but he had no choice but to obey Ramsay’s summons to attend to him.

Ramsay said little to him over the evening. The fire burned warm and low in the hearth. Ramsay’s room was one of the most insulated in the entire fort. Reek did not like being in Ramsay’s presence, but he did like being warm. The kennels were always freezing unless he curled up next to the girls. The dungeons were even worse.

Ramsay held out his goblet without looking. Reek limped over immediately with the pitcher, pouring him a generous serving of wine. Ramsay did not acknowledge him. His ice-chip eyes were trained on the hearth, his brow lowered in thought. Reek was hyper-aware of the silence. At least when Ramsay was in a noisy room with other people, Reek could flatten himself against the wall and fade from their attention. But here, it was just the two of them, and there was nowhere to hide.

On the armrest of his chair, Ramsay’s gloved fingers tapped, one by one. 

“Reek,” he said as though something had suddenly occurred to him. He spoke softly; he nearly always did, but Reek had been trained to listen to every vocalization he made. Ramsay rarely needed to raise his voice to get his attention. 

Reek’s lip trembled. His mutilated fingers clutched convulsively around the pitcher’s handle. “M’lord?” he asked, taking a tiny step forward.

“I’ve been hearing… reports,” Ramsay said slowly. He turned so that his blue eyes peered up at Reek. They were filled with bottomless cruelty, iced over with a layer of untouchable distance. Reek felt his gaze upon him like cold water down his spine. Ramsay stirred his wine with one finger and took a sip. “Reports that... I can’t help but find alarming.”

Reek knew that somehow, the reports would be about him, and they would not be good. He rewound his time frantically, examining the days Ramsay had been gone. Had he done anything bad? He didn’t think so. But Ramsay was waiting patiently for his response, and Reek knew he had to say something, though it made him cringe.

“Reports, m’lord?” he asked.

“Yes. Apparently, you’ve been hanging around my dear sweet wife and her chambers. Is that true, Reek?” Ramsay’s voice was still gentle, but it reached into Reek’s chest and gripped his heart all the same.

To deny it would not be true, and Reek could not lie to his master. To agree with it was even more dangerous. Reek licked his lips and tried to think, which was hard, as his brain felt like pudding that had melted and leaked out of his ears.

“Reek is—is tending to Lady Sansa, like he was told to,” he offered weakly.

“Oh?” Ramsay’s face took on a comically surprised expression. “Did I tell you to do that, now? Tell me, did I also instruct you to pine after her? Change her bedding? The cooks tell me she barely eats. Have you been eating her scraps?”

Reek trembled. How had the night turned dreadful so fast? This was another one of Ramsay’s games where there was no right answer and many ways to lose. Truthfully, Reek had never touched her leftovers. In his mind, Ramsay would certainly know if he took a single crumb, and that terror was enough to smother all temptation. His stomach cramped to look at all that good food gone uneaten, but he was dutiful about taking the remains to the waste heap in the back corner of the fort. 

But that was not the answer Ramsay wanted, and therefore it was not correct.

Reek’s knees hit the carpeted floor painfully. Acute fear had robbed the strength in them and he could not keep himself upright. 

“Sorry, m’lord,” he managed through the thick lump in his throat. Ramsay was going to hurt him now, but at least it would take place in his chambers, where it was warm, and not in the dungeons, where the cold made the aftermath of a punishment even more unbearable.

Ramsay set down his goblet with a quiet clink and stood up from his chair. Reek cowered, pressing himself to the floorboards. Waiting for the punishment to begin was the worst part. If there had been anything in his bladder, he was half-certain it would have left him then and there.

“I’m disappointed,” Ramsay said, which made tears fill up Reek’s vision. He blinked them away and watched them splash on the floor. He felt gutted. “Do you know why?”

Reek sucked in a quivering breath and bowed his head. “No, m’lord.” He dug his nails into his knees, hoping the pinpricks of pain would clear the cobwebs in his head. It seemed Ramsay was always disappointed in him no matter how hard Reek tried to be good. He thought back to a fortnight ago, when Ramsay had held his hand so gently and fed him scraps from his own plate. Reek craved the touches of gentle Ramsay, but they made the words of angry Ramsay hurt worse.

“Are you Sansa’s dog, or are you mine?” Ramsay asked. 

Reek’s heart leapt painfully. His head jerked back on his neck so he could stare imploringly up at Ramsay. “Yours, m’lord!” he babbled. “Reek is yours, your dog, yours…”

Ramsay smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I’m very glad to hear that, pet. But I don’t like you hanging around my sweet wife’s chambers. I’m afraid she’ll ask you to do something silly again, like the candle in the window. It puts bad thoughts in your head.”

Reek wanted to cry. He’d split open his own head and show its meager contents to Ramsay if that was what it took to convince him he was good Reek, loyal Reek. 

Ramsay walked to the far wall of his room. Pushed up against it was a large, heavy trunk. Reek knew the trunk intimately. That was where Ramsay kept some of his favorite implements now that Reek had been released from the dungeons. 

“My father has his leeches,” Ramsay remarked, running a hand over the lid of the trunk. “He believes they improve the body’s humors by draining sickness from the blood.” Ramsay made a gesture for Reek to come closer; he obeyed in a cringing shuffle. “Your fascination with my wife concerns me. In a way, I think it could be called a sickness, don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” Reek agreed. He swallowed the bile that came up hot in his throat. It pleased Ramsay when Reek agreed with his worldview.

“Well, I don’t have any of his leeches with me at the moment, but I am concerned for your health. And I think we should deal with that sickness immediately. Don’t you want to be well?”

Reek’s eyes overflowed with tears. He wanted that, wanted it so badly he could not speak. He nodded jerkily.

Ramsay smiled. From his pocket he drew out an iron key and held it out. “Luckily, we have other ways of drawing blood. Fetch the whip.”

A bubble of fear expanded in his head, crowding out all other thoughts. He was suspended in a perfect ocean of fear. Weightless, he drifted across the room and accepted the key from Ramsay’s waiting palm. Then he hunched over to unlock the trunk.

It was difficult with his missing fingers. Reek didn’t have to look up to know that Ramsay was smiling at his clumsy struggles. He enjoyed it when Reek struggled to complete tasks due to his missing appendages. 

He willed his remaining fingers to work, but they shook uncontrollably. He hadn’t eaten anything more than watery gruel in two days. Every part of him ached already. Oh gods, he could not think about how much the whip would hurt. He couldn’t.

“Any time today, pet,” Ramsay said softly. Anticipation coated his voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Reek saw a beginning bulge in Ramsay’s pants.

Reek shuddered, but finally the lock sprang apart in his nerveless hands. Ramsay helped him lift the lid. Inside, an assortment of torure implements and clean rags were neatly assembled. Reek carefully kept his eyes off the roll of flaying knives. It hurt just to look at them.

Ramsay had two whips. One was shorter and more flexible, made of a thin braided strip of leather. It stung like a bee’s sting, but rarely broke the skin. Ramsay also had a big black bullwhip. It was much longer and thicker—it tore gouges in Reek’s back. 

Reek risked a glance at Ramsay. He hadn’t specified which one to choose. His gaze was inscrutable. It was another game. Licking his lips, Reek carefully lifted the bullwhip from the velvet. Ramsay smiled at that, pleased, and Reek’s heart fluttered just a bit. Usually when Ramsay smiled, it meant nothing good, but sometimes...sometimes Reek could tell he’d genuinely pleased him. He hoarded those precious smiles as if they were gold.

Reek did not need further instructions at this point. He shuffled forward on his knees until he was braced against the adjacent wall. It was not near any furniture, and Ramsay had installed two iron cuffs there. Back when Theon was still alive, Ramsay had been forced to lock him to the wall by each wrist so he could take his punishment. Reek was better-behaved, now. Tame as a lamb, he leaned his forehead against the warm stone and removed his raggedy shirt, clutching it in his lap. He was trying to pretend that the punishment had already happened, that it was over and Reek had been forgiven. It helped him control his shaking.

“Let’s see,” Ramsay said aloud. He’d moved a distance behind Reek so that the whip would have enough space to draw back. “I was away hunting for half a fortnight. Do you know how long that is, Reek?”

“Seven days, m’lord,” Reek croaked. 

“Yes, pet. And you brought my wife her meals three times a day, correct?”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“So, that means a total of twenty-one visits while I was gone. You could have gotten up to anything with my dear wife while I was gone, yes?”

“Only you!” Reek insisted. “Reek only—only loves his master, m’lord.” The saliva he kept swallowing was making him sick to his stomach.

“Thank you, pet. I’m happy to hear that. But I just can’t be sure. You are one of my bitches, you see, and sometimes they go into heat. That means I have to keep them separate from the other dogs, because they’ll do anything for a fuck.” His voice was sweet as poison. “Are you in heat, Reek? Is that why you’re sniffing after my wife?”

Reek sniffed tearfully, his stomach dropping with horror. Oh gods, why had he done that? He should have known to stay away from her. His visits only brought the both of them more pain, anyway. “No, m’lord.” 

“Well, I think twenty-one lashes is enough to make sure, don’t you?” Ramsay asked. The whip slithered across the floor; he was drawing back his arm.

Reek squeezed his eyes shut and whispered his agreement. Then the first lash came flying with a loud _crack_. A line of fire erupted across Theon’s naked back. He bit his lip, but managed to stay silent and upright. 

_Crack!_

Another burning brand, this time falling across his upper shoulders. Reek trembled badly. He was always terrified of the lash wrapping around his face and striking his eyes. 

_Crack! Crack!_

A trickling sensation; he’d begun to bleed. He leaned his forehead harder against the stone. It hurt so much. He tried to breathe through the pain, but couldn’t. It made him nauseous. The impulse to protect his back with his hands was strong, but Ramsay had corrected that behavior long ago.

_Crack! Crack!_

The punishment continued, each lash splitting open the skin. At some point, Reek went away. The pain was his but at the same time not. He floated somewhere near the ceiling, detachedly thankful to be separated from that decrepit husk. Ramsay was almost as masterful with the whip as he was with the flaying knife. He knew how to interject little pauses between each strike so that Reek couldn’t adjust to a tempo. He aimed for the tender flesh and alternated the force of his blows. 

“Just three more,” Ramsay said. Reek heard him distantly and felt the brush of inquisitive fingers across his matted hair. “I want to make sure this lesson sticks, Reek, so we don’t have to do this again.”

 _Liar!_ A voice screamed in Reek’s head. It sounded like Theon, and that scared Reek.

Ramsay was still petting him. “I want you to count these last three out loud, Reek,” he said with aching softness. “Will you do that for me?”

Rising from the depths of Reek’s brittle soul came a huge force of emotion, a maelstrom of agony and terror and hatred and cringing adoration that overtook him completely. Overwhelmed, he began to sob—great, heaving convulsions that rattled through his entire body. At least Ramsay didn’t mind it; he liked when Reek cried. Why did Ramsay always _do_ this? 

He was sobbing too hard to speak, so he nodded his head instead. Mucus dripped freely from his nose, making it hard to breathe.

“Good,” Ramsay said, satisfied, and then went back to his position. “Here we go, then.”

_Crack!_

“One,” Reek sputtered.

_Crack!_

_“Ah!_ T-two!”

A pause. “One more, pet,” Ramsay said. Reek squeezed his eyes shut again and waited.

**_Crack!_ **

Reek shrieked. It was the most painful lash yet, deeply tearing open the skin over his mid-back. Ramsay had put all his strength behind it. Reek wanted desperately to say, ‘Three,’ but couldn’t force it out past his sobs. That made him panic, which made him sob worse.

“Pet?” Ramsay prompted.

Reek turned and bit his own wrist savagely, gnawing until the pain in his arm distracted him from the pain in his back. “Three,” he finally choked, and dissolved in a flurry of tears, whiting out from the pain.

He was coaxed back into his body by Ramsay’s cool hands running over his forehead. They had moved closer to the hearth while Reek was detached from himself. Ramsay was cradling him in his lap, supporting his neck with one strong arm. His other hand held a soaked cloth. When had he gotten it? Reek couldn’t remember. His thoughts oozed out of the holes in his brain, slipping through the gaps of his missing fingers. Ramsay was hard, he knew that much. He could feel him poking against his hip. 

“Shh, shhh, don’t cry, pet, it’s over,” Ramsay was whispering, running the wet cloth over his lacerated back. Reek’s world performed another queasy flip. Ramsay never tended to his wounds after a punishment; if Reek was hurt badly enough, the maester was summoned to tend to him. Ramsay wrung out the blood in a nearby bucket and made another light pass over Reek’s wounds. It hurt, but not as much as it could have. Ramsay was being careful about the pressure.

The touch of consideration was too much. Reek buried his face in Ramsay’s strong chest and wept. His tears soaked Ramsay’s jerkin. 

“I’m sorry, master, I’m so sorry!” he cried out. He didn’t know anymore what he was apologizing for, only that he felt a desperate urge to make Ramsay happy. He clutched Ramsay’s shirt. “Sorry, Reek is sorry, so sorry…”

“Will you linger around Lady Sansa’s chambers again?” Ramsay asked kindly. He leaned down and kissed Reek’s sweaty brow. Reek was overwhelmed; he could not speak, so he shook his head frantically against Ramsay’s chest.

“Good pet,” Ramsay murmured, rocking him now like a child. Reek clung to the kindness, no matter how much blood and pain it cost. He didn’t think he could survive being Reek without it. “My good, sweet Reek. I forgive you.”

Firelight gleamed along the glistening length of the whip where it lay, discarded, in a coil on the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> For Qouii's INCREDIBLE art, visit [here](https://qouii.tumblr.com/post/615298949875679232/i-forgive-you)


End file.
